


Scars

by tsutsuji



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Consensual Kink, Cutting, Established Relationship, M/M, Marking, Scarification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 19:44:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1660235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsutsuji/pseuds/tsutsuji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scars on the soul go deeper than scars on the skin. Is Ryou strong enough to break the bonds that hold Bakura to his painful past? Bakura thinks he is.<br/>Based on Yu-gi-oh Plot Bunny #558 from old Yaoi Bunny Farm: Ryou cuts something into Bakura's shoulder - what is it, and why does Bakura let him do it? Written in 2006.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

 I know I'm screaming, but I can't wake up.

 

Fire, blood, pain, and darkness surround me, suffocating me. I can't draw breath, and yet I can gasp enough air to scream and scream. The flames and the pain are horrible, but worse than those is the darkness that I know awaits me at the end of it all - endless, empty dark, with no sound, no breath, and no light, forever...

 

"Bakura!"

 

I barely hear my name through the roar of flames and the screams. I can barely feel the soft touch on my face, in my hair, on my neck and shoulders. I'm hardly aware of the hands trying to pull me back from the Shadow that sucks me into its endless, stifling embrace....

 

"Bakura!"

 

Sharper voice, warm breath on my face; I can almost see a trembling light. But I am falling from the flames into the silence, into the endless dark...

 

_"Bakura!"_

 

I am caught, breathless, by sudden fierce light, which somehow becomes warm brown eyes, cool hands on my face, and a soft but demanding voice.

 

"Come back to me, Bakura! Come on, wake up! It's me. It's Ryou. Wake up, _please_!"

 

The frantic break in the commanding voice catches me and pulls me away from the edge. Slowly I become aware again. I can feel Ryou's hands on my face and stroking my hair, his breath on my cheek, his body pressed against mine. I feel the damp sheets twisted under me, and see the light in his eyes, the fierce, commanding, possessive light. I feel myself breathe, drawing air hungrily into my lungs, catching his scent. My hands are clenched so tightly my nails have broken the skin of my palm, but I can't unclench them.

 

"Relax," Ryou says. "I've got you. You're here." His relief comes out in a shaking sigh against my face. "Stay with me," he says, commanding me. "Please," he says, begging me.

 

I've given up wondering why he bothers, why he cares enough to bring me back from the nightmare's edge every time. I do still wonder, sometimes, why I live again at all, why the gods granted me this second chance at life.

 

" _It's a chance to atone for your sins,_ " the others say, Yugi and his friends. I think they're wrong. I think I am only here to be tortured with memories of my past life and 3000 years of darkness. But Ryou says no, those aren't the reasons.

 

" _The gods gave you this life to make up for the one you never had before_ ," he says.

 

I wouldn't believe it, but if the gods only meant to torture me, why did they give me Ryou as well?

 

Seeing me breathe again, Ryou sighs. "You're back," he says. He sounds grateful, as if it was my own doing.

 

He takes my clenched fist in his hand and unfolds my fingers. I pull his hand to my lips and kiss it. He smiles.

 

"That's better," he whispers through his smile. He nestles close to me and strokes my hair again.

 

I notice that he is shaking with delayed stress, while I am going limp now that the nightmare's terror has left me. Once he was afraid of me, now he is only ever afraid for me.

 

Brushing my lips over his hand, I feel the scars there. How can I atone for this? He says it doesn't matter, his hand is fine; he insists that the scars on his torso from the Ring and the old gash on his arm hardly show at all on his pale skin. I can see them quite plainly, however. They make me wonder how I can atone for all of it. In fact, I wonder how I am supposed to atone for having lived at all.

 

"I hate this," he says. "I hate it that the past has such a hold on you. I just want you to stay here with me forever."

 

I want that, too.

 

\---

 

It's still early, but I'm done with sleep for the night. A short time later, I am in the kitchen, standing at the counter and chopping vegetables. I'm never as precise as Ryou is at this task, nor as patient. He tolerates my making a mess of his kitchen, while he amuses me with his careful arrangement of every bite of food. He is equally meticulous about most things, whether it is his role-playing games, housekeeping, or his card collection. I am only that careful about thieving, of course, which he somehow tolerates as well.

 

Ryou always insists that we eat soon after one of my nightmare attacks, as if food is a ritual that can ground us in the present. I don't mind, but as far as I can tell, his touch and his voice are the only things that ground me here on earth at all.

 

This time I'm being careful and precise with the knife, as much to steady myself as to produce perfect slices of carrots. Ryou's kitchen is bright and modern, full of the sound and scent of the present. There is coffee brewing, and the steamer hums and bubbles. The soft daylight of early morning washes in through the window. Everything stimulates my senses with the present, pushing the memory of the nightmare away.

 

When I'm awake, I hardly remember the details of my previous life, although I know the story of it well enough. Shards of colors, scents and sounds remain in my mind from those ancient times. I remember being there, yet it also seems as if it was someone else entirely who lived that life. I don't remember how it felt to grow up in that world. I hardly remember what I looked like or how it felt to be the man I was then.

 

When I appeared here, suddenly reborn or remade, I appeared in the body that I had become comfortable living in and thought of as my own. I returned to life in Ryou's form, though slightly altered. My skin is a shade darker than his, my hair is rough and thick while his is soft and fine, and my eyes are a shadowy blue. My voice has a deeper tone than his, and, I'm told, an accent that I'm not aware of. I eat more heartily than he does and gain muscle, while he nibbles delicately and remains slim, although he is much stronger than he looks.

 

The other part of my appearance that is my own and not Ryou's are my scars. It's no comfort to me that they far outnumber his. I think they are only ghosts of the ones I acquired in my too-eventful life in the ancient past, and I am certain my skin is not as dark as it was then, so they don't show as sharply as they did on my old body.

 

The former Pharaoh, whose appearance as a separate self in this time was less of a surprise than mine, says these marks reveal the scars on my soul. For once I have to admit he may be right. Each of them but one is linked to a nightmare, beginning with the brand on my arm where a burning fragment of my home fell on me. Only the scar on my face, barely noticeable now, is the proud mark of a rite of passage and a memory that I do not regret. I acquired that one during the capture and escape that marked the beginning of my reign as the King of Thieves.

 

When I suddenly found myself alive in this time, I was as surprised as anyone else. It happened shortly after the Millennium Items were destroyed, while Ryou and the others were still in Egypt. Only Ryou seemed to have been expecting me to appear, whole and solid, in the midst of their group. I remember his smile of delight, and that it surprised and confused me, just as so many other things about him always did.

 

I don't remember much else of those first moments in my new life, but I'm told that the very first thing I did was swoon and faint like a maiden. I'm also told that he surprised them all with a fit of fury when they wanted to leave me there in the middle of the desert. It only was on his insistence that I was brought back with them to his country, here to this place that has become my home.

 

Now, in the kitchen, Ryou comes up behind me, puts his arms around my waist, and looks over my shoulder at what I'm doing. I glance back at him, mockingly seeking his approval. He smiles indulgently.

 

Then he closes his eyes and rests his head on my shoulder. His hair brushes my neck and his arms tighten around me. His sweatshirt is soft against my bare back. This hug is meant to be innocent, I suppose, but even his cotton sweatpants pressed against my jean-clad ass suggest other ideas to my body. If he stays like that for long, we are going to have to find some other way to ground ourselves in the present than with food. Not that I would mind if we did!

 

"Did you change your mind about breakfast?" I ask, wiggling my hips back against him suggestively.

 

"Bakura! Aren't you hungry?"

 

I twist my head around so that he can see me leer. "Of course I am! For you, that is!"

 

We kiss over my shoulder, but he pulls back, smiling teasingly. The others have no idea what a tease my Ryou can be when he wants to be.

 

"We should eat first," he says decisively.

 

"Hmph," I grumble, but I return my attention to carefully slicing the carrots. He lays his cheek against my shoulder again and sighs happily.

 

He contradicts his words a moment later by kissing my shoulder at the peak, then at the curve of my neck. Keeping one hand around me, he brings the other back to brush my hair out of the way and kiss another spot, over my spine at the base of my neck. He doesn't stop there, either.

 

Forget the vegetables. I close my eyes, lean back a little, and tip my head to the side to encourage him.

 

He kisses a little lower down my spine, then to the side above my shoulder blade. His lips are warm and soft. His tongue touches me like a delicate flame.

 

Tongue and lips flick gently at a sensitive place, an old scar on my back.

 

I gasp and arch back, going rigid. That place... suddenly I remember, as clearly as the screams in my nightmares, the whip that cut that scar into my flesh 3000 years ago. I am back there in a flash, with the strong hands of grown men holding my arms, chains on my legs, another lash about to fall on my back; I hear the crack of it and my body jerks....

 

_"Bakura!"_

 

Ryou's voice snaps me back into the flow of time. I was only gone for a second. Gasping for breath, I clutch the edge of the counter with both hands. His arms are around me again, caressing my arms gently, so different than the rough hands that held me while the whips fell. I could never mistake one for the other. I know where I am.

 

"Ryou," I breathe his name, letting it flow through me to melt away the remembered pain.

 

He hugs me from behind, arms wrapped tight around me.

 

"I hate this!" he cries out softly when he knows I'm truly back with him again. "How do I keep you here, Bakura? These scars, your nightmares - I wish I could just cut off your past somehow so I could keep you here!"

 

He leans against my back with his arms around me from behind, possessively. It's as if he holds me to earth like a force of nature.

 

How can someone who looks as delicate as Ryou be so strong? How can a boy who seems so passive be so fierce?

 

I unclench my hands from the counter's edge and reach up to hold his arms around me. He's so warm and solid against my back. The imagined pain has rushed away to be replaced by heat that floods my body from his touch. I want to turn around and fold him in my arms and taste him, but my legs won't move yet. I take in a deep breath, and when I sigh it out and look down again, I'm find I'm staring at the knife that I dropped on the counter.

 

I hardly even stop to wonder if he's strong enough. I know he is.

 

"Perhaps there is a way," I say.

 

It takes several beats of my heart before he raises his head.  
  
"What do you mean?"

 

I reach up and take his scarred left hand in both of mine, weave our fingers together, then open his hand to place the handle of the knife against his palm. I close my left hand around his, then reach back with the other hand to caress his thigh. I rotate my hips back against his a little, enough to make it clear how I want him.

 

"Make me yours, then, Ryou. Take possession of me, just as I possessed you before. Cut the past out of my skin and mark me as yours."

 

He hesitates, taking in my words. I know he's strong enough, but I'm not sure if he knows it, so I wait. After a few seconds, his own fingers tighten around the knife handle. He presses his lower body against mine, sending a rush of hot blood to my groin. At the same time, he leans back enough to bend down and place his lips against my shoulder again, next to the scar he kissed a moment ago.

 

"Here?" he asks in his innocent voice.

 

I shudder. Heat rushes through me.

 

"Yes," I hiss.

 

His teeth graze my skin. I cry out and thrust back against his hips before I know what I'm doing.

 

"Bakura," he says. He doesn't sound so innocent after all.

 

\--

 

Ryou approaches this task with the same precision, care, and attention to detail that he gives to cooking and gaming. Later the same day, we have eaten and bathed almost ritualistically. All the time we were doing this, I could see him thinking and planning, so that when we come to it he has everything ready in his mind. The actual preparations take little time, and all I can do is watch and admire his efficiency and determination.

 

Soon I find myself with my chest and hips supported and raised on a stack of pillows on top of the futon, and my knees drawn up near my elbows. With my arms hugging the pillows I am absurdly comfortable, even posed like this with my naked ass in the air.

 

I peer back over my shoulder to watch as Ryou arranges everything he needs on a tray nearby. I catch him smiling at the sight of me. His gaze roams from my shoulder down my back and rests on my ass. I'm sure he can see my balls tighten up a little just from the heat of his gaze. I raise an eyebrow at him wordlessly. He blushes, but that doesn't change the possessive look in his eyes.

 

He's wearing loose silk pants now, so I can't feast my eyes on him in the same way. They rustle as he kneels next to me, by my left shoulder. Smiling like an angel, he brushes my hair off my back. The light touch makes me shiver with anticipation. How can he look so innocent when he knows perfectly well what he's doing to me? He runs his hand down my spine, across my flank, brushes his fingers over the mound of my ass, and everywhere he touches I feel heat rush into my skin. I'm already hard before he touches my cock at all, which makes him smile even more.

 

He sits back on his heels and takes two cups from the tray he set down a moment ago, and holds one of them for me to sip from. I was already quite relaxed, but the silky warmth of the sake melts away any remaining tension. If I didn't know what was to come, I would consider closing my eyes and dozing for a moment. But then I would miss seeing the telltale flush that climbs into Ryou's face as the alcohol hits his system, and the way his eyes gleam a little brighter when he looks down at me again.

 

He rarely drinks, so his tolerance is low. I can see the warmth spread through him, and I know what it's doing to him. I've seen it happen, to my pleasure, many times. In fact, anyone who thinks Ryou is merely innocent and naive has obviously never seen him drunk and horny. The first time I accidentally got him drunk was also the first time he fucked me. I'm not ashamed to say that I enjoyed it enough to want him to do it again, but for some reason he remains shy about taking that role, so he has to be coaxed into it each time. If I'm patient, I can seduce him into the proper state on my own, but if I'm feeling too eager to bother, a little alcohol does the trick nicely.

 

On this occasion, however, he is careful not to drink too much. Another cup of sake and he would be too aroused to complete his carefully planned ritual. This sip is just for the final rush of courage, and just enough to steady his hand.

 

Ryou has never harmed a living thing in his life. I know he can be brave about the sight of his own blood, as I watched him suffer through the wounds I gave him when I used his body, but I also know he cringes whenever he sees anyone else in pain. It's a sign of how much he wants me that he can do this at all.

 

I also know how precise he can be with a blade, whether it is to cut paper-thin slices of vegetables or to carve the smallest details into his game figures. He spends as much time, if not more, carving new figures and intricate scenes out of wood for his game world as he does playing the game itself.

 

He kneels beside me and picks up the blade he's chosen. I'm amused to see that it is in fact one of the same ones he uses to make his game figures. Appropriate, but it looks rather delicate compared to the knife I was expecting, so I raise a doubtful eyebrow as he holds it up for me to see.

 

"It's a hobby knife, but I use medical scalpel blades instead of hobby blades. They make a much cleaner cut, so I can carve the wood with very fine detail. And I know just how easily they cut through skin, as well, having nicked myself accidentally on quite a few occasions." He smiles, an odd sort of smile that he gets sometimes, the same look he has when he's choosing a new card for our occult card collection. It's the same creepy smile that makes Jonouchi so nervous I have to laugh - they all thought it was only me that made his lips curl like that, but it wasn't.

 

"It won't take very much pressure to make the cut,'' he continues, calmly explaining his plan to me, "so I'll be able to concentrate on the design."

 

He holds out the blade and looks at it, speaking to it respectfully with his eyes, as a craftsman honors the spirit within his tools. Then he turns and catches my eye, giving me almost the same reverent look. He leans forward a little and presses his left hand around mine.

 

"Stay with me," he says.

 

He lays the cold, flat side of the blade against the line of the scar that he touched earlier. I bite my lip to concentrate and hold his gaze when the memory pulls at me.

 

"Bakura," he says. I can tell he's struggling to keep his voice steady. He swallows hard as he touches other points below that one on my back, each one a memory of some horror from the past. "I'm going to mark you here to show that - that you're mine. The lines from these old scars on your skin will become part of my own name, so the line that bound you to the past will bind you to me instead."

 

I squeeze his hand. I can't say anything, and it's moments like these when I miss the mental link we used to have. I can only stare back at him to let him know how much I trust him, how much I want this from him.

 

After a moment, he lets go of my hand and moves back to kneel between my feet, then leans forward over my back. For a few heady seconds I am thoroughly distracted from all other matters by the feel of his partial erection through the silk pants, rubbing sensuously over my exposed ass and nestling in behind mine. That's all I notice as he settles himself over my back, rearranges me on the pillows to bring my shoulder up a little higher, then uses my body to support his arms. Then I feel his breath on the back of my neck, and his touch as he moves a few more strands of hair out of the way.

 

"Try not to move too much, please," he requests politely. For a moment he reminds me of a hairdresser, or an artist speaking to his model. I nod, resting my chin on the pillows, relaxing and settling my limbs.

 

"Stay with me, Bakura," he says. His voice is soft but steady now. "Right here with me, no matter what."

 

The blade breaks my skin. Only a prick at first, growing into a clear, bright, fine line of pain. It deepens slowly, surprising me, as it blends with the steady sound of Ryou's voice murmuring to me. I take deep breaths, catching his scent in the pillows under my face.

 

After one long first cut, there is a pause. The pain settles into me, burning down through layers of skin and flesh and bone into my soul. It is completely different than the pain I remember. Instead of trying to push it away, I want to draw it in deeper. The keen burning line of it feeds the heat his touch inspires in me. With every cut, I am more aware that this pain is a gift, while the old scars only mark where something was torn away from me. I've never wanted to look at the old scars on my back and arms, but already I can't wait to see the result of Ryou's work.

 

He leans aside and takes something else from the tray. A second later I catch another scent, the warm, slightly spicy scent of almond oil. That familiar odor goes directly from my brain to my cock, even before he touches me with his oiled fingers. He massages my ass and balls briefly with his left hand, only a light coating of the oil for now. The pleasure building up at the base of my spine blends with the fine, white line of the pain spreading down from my shoulder.

 

Then he leans in against me again and continues cutting.

 

I thought it would be difficult to remain in the present. I fully expected that disturbing the old scars would awaken the nightmares, but the memory of old pain is no match for what Ryou is giving to me. His touch, voice, and scent, the caressing fingers of his left hand, the weight of his body against my back, all keep me firmly in the present. I am too busy trying to imagine the shape his cuts are taking to think about the scars he's destroying.

 

While he cuts I take long, deep breaths, pulling the pain inside, but when he pauses to caress me my breaths become moans of pleasure. I want him inside me, deep inside me. It becomes, more than anything, a test of my patience, a torture of anticipation.

 

He has to pause now and then to blot up the blood that I can feel trickling over my back in order to clear his canvas. It occurs to me suddenly, incongruously, that I have never shed blood in this time in this body - only his blood, never my own. Perhaps that makes this a form of atonement. I almost laugh, a little giddy with the thought that this is probably not what the righteous former Pharaoh meant.

 

"Bakura," Ryou says softly. "Are you okay?"

 

"I'm very, very fine," I answer, smiling into the pillows.

 

"Um-hm," he says, sounding amused. "Endorphins."

 

"What?" I have no idea what that means.

 

"Never mind. I'll explain later. I'm almost finished here."

 

I'm almost disappointed. The pain on my back has spread out, no longer fine singular lines but one large, warm, singing blanket of pain. Strangely comforting to have it there. I know it will continue for some time even after he stops cutting, and I'm anxious to see what he's done, but I still hate to have it stop.

 

He flexes his hips, pressing against my ass. I moan when I feel the ridge of his cock through the silk pants.

 

"Gods, I want you inside me," the words rush out of me. It's becoming very difficult not to move under him. Suddenly I'm more than ready for him to stop cutting so he can fuck me properly.

 

"Soon," he croons. He dabs at my back with a sheet of gauze. "I just have to fix this," he adds, distracted by his work, before bending to his task again.

 

Sharper, deeper gashes sear into me as he returns to some of the lines he already cut. It takes my breath away. I almost feel as if he is truly deep inside me already, under my skin, spreading his touch through me from within.

 

"Bakura," Ryou's voice drifts in this time through the slight haze that gathered around me. Not the dark cloud of nightmare, though.

 

"I'm here," I answer immediately. "Right here with you, Ryou."

 

"Good. I'm done. With this, at least."

 

I hear the soft clatter as he sets his tools aside; he dabs a little more at my back with gauze, and then sets that aside as well. He slides his arms underneath me, hugs me and kisses my neck.

 

"Now I have you," he says.

 

Free to move now, I roll my hips and arch up under him. With his right arm still around me, he reaches back with his left and fingers me. My balls are throbbing for him, pulsing in time with the pain-heat throbbing in my back.

 

Ryou kisses his way down my spine, making me ripple under him even more as he pulls his hands away. I hear him pick something up from the tray - another sip of sake to heat his blood - and then the whisper of silk as he sheds his pants. The next thing I feel is the semi-hard, slick head of his cock slipping in behind my balls. It feels good there, but I want it inside me, now! Then his fist closes around my own shaft and I buck up under him with a groan.

 

He wedges his legs in under mine, raising me up a little more. I willingly come up on elbows and knees, spreading my legs for him to come into me. He doesn't waste any more time.

 

"Bakura!" he moans as he presses inside me. He slides in easily, growing harder by the second. I shudder and thrust back, making him groan as I engulf him in my heat. The slight, burning pressure sears into me, racing up my spine like a lighted fuse, adding to the fire that's been lit in my skin.

 

Soon, his arms are around me, he's buried in me as deep as he can be, and we're rocking together, steady, not quite desperate yet, but heading that way quickly.

 

"Mine, Bakura," he is moaning against my back, his face against my right shoulder. His fist is pumping me from below, his other arm wound around underneath me. The heat and pressure are growing at the base of my spine, with every thrust, with every word he breathes against my skin. "Mine. Stay. With me. Forever."

 

I can only answer with my body; the rush of blood and heat keeps me from speaking, until finally I can gasp his name aloud.

 

"Ryou..."

 

My body seems to light up from within. The lines on my back seem to be lit with fire, his name carved there on my skin, seared into my soul. I know I am his forever. Nothing can tear me away from him now. The fire rushes down my spine, gathers at the base of my cock and explodes.

 

I know I am screaming as I come, screaming his name over and over. I feel his explosion within me while mine is still breaking. Ryou is screaming as well, my name, our name, over and over.

 

I've never felt so alive as I do the moment after I come down from this. Every nerve in my body is alive; every sense is connected to the world, the present, connected to Ryou through his touch, his scent, and the sound of his breath. His face is damp against my neck. We are both drenched in ourselves. I just want to lie here, breathing, listening to him breathe, feeling him all around me and deep inside me.

 

"You're here," he says.

 

I am. Here in the present, here with Ryou, forever.

 

\--

*Epilogue*

\--

 

I've never spent so much time looking at myself in a mirror before.

 

Ryou has fussed and fretted over the cuts, of course, but I think he is pleased with how they look. He touches them, too, following the shape of them with his delicate fingers. I like the feel of them as well.

 

We have been wondering if my skin will hold the marks, or if they will disappear as the ones on his fair skin tend to do. I wish the ones I gave him were as beautiful as these he has given me.

 

A week after they were made, they are still bright, clear lines, but they are healing rapidly. I am almost disappointed that they are no longer as red or as tender as they were at first. The old scars on my back have all but disappeared, and at least for now, so have my nightmares.

 

Ryou has started asking me about my past, now, though, coaxing me to remember moments from my life that are not tainted with the darkness. To my surprise, there are many such moments. Three thousand years consumed by Shadow has obscured the plain daylight of my past life. However, all I'm really concerned with is my present and future life here, with him.

 

Although I learned to speak Ryou's language from hearing his thoughts when I possessed him, I am still learning to read the symbols of his writing. But I know what these symbols mean, these lines carved down the side of my back. _Bakura Ryou_. My name and his, forever written in my skin and within my soul.

 

*-*-*-*

The end

*-*-*-*

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> First and so far last time I’ve written fanfic in first person point of view. I'd been reading mainstream erotica, which is usually written in first person and often in present tense, so I tried that with this. I'm not sure how well it worked, so comments are appreciated.
> 
> Halfway through writing it I stopped and did a little research online, and was inspired by the images of cuttings people have done which can be seen at sites like BMEzine and BodyMod.org. I originally imagined Ryou's cutting was going to be fairly small and simple, but now I picture it as his full name written in kanji down the side of Bakura's back, almost from shoulder to waist, pretty much as it appears written on the blackboard at the beginning of Duel 50 in the manga.  
> It had to be on Bakura's left side of his back, because that's where I have my Millennium Ring tattoo.


End file.
